Boss Brainstorm

[spring silo]

🧵

[sinful holly]

1 card is preselected seems like a good replacement for the hook if it gets replaced

metaphorically hooks onto a card

[lucid locust]

“Must alternate plays and discards” how’d that work with burglar?

[surreal fog]

^my first thought

just 1 hand?

[spring silo]

Was thinking flavour wise that would be for the manacle

[sinful holly]

i c

[spring silo]

Like you're shackled to a card

[sinful holly]

makes sense

[spring silo]

Alternating would only be while you have discards/hands

Jokers can hard counter

[sinful holly]

delayed gratification users when they can’t one shot boss

[spring silo]

Also if any of these ideas suck/are worse than any of the original ideas I'm game to remove them entirely

[quiet oracle]

All enhanced cards are debuffed

[sinful holly]

yeah that’s a good one

idk who suggested it before

[minor radish]

well I personally dislike this

DEBUFF hand if contains a: Straight, Flush, 3oak (debuff all cards instead of autodiscarding them)

unless I misunderstand it?

[spring silo]

More than the original version of those bosses?

Before it'd yeet your hand if it contained any of those

[quiet oracle]

All cards debuffed until 0 discards remain

[minor radish]

so when you play straight, all cards turn debuffed?

[spring silo]

Yes

[spring silo]

I was thinking this is too similar to the water

[surreal fog]

remember: playing fully debuffed cards is not a death sentence

[minor radish]

well completely ignoring hand is worse I agree

[quiet oracle]

same tbh

[spring silo]

I love flipping cards over - I think the wheel is generally the best boss

So adding a couple flippy bosses would be good

[surreal fog]

yeah any excuse to get more flipped cards is good in my book

[quiet oracle]

When hand played, all cards in held hand are flipped?

[sinful holly]

in held hand?

[surreal fog]

oh thats interesting, becomes a memory game instead of deduction

[quiet oracle]

yes, held

should’ve specified

[spring silo]

I like the idea a lot

Unfortunately I forsee the words 'pen and paper' showing up more if I have that boss

[surreal fog]

lmao yeah

[sinful holly]

the arm is on the chopping block? makes sense tbh

[quiet oracle]

*proceeds to open up notepad*

[crisp iris]

I'd just take a screenshot yeah

[spring silo]

Unless all newly drawn cards are facedown only?

[surreal fog]

im glad to see all the bosses I called out a while back being on the chopping block lol

tbh im struggling to come up with good ideas for final boss blinds to replace crimson heart/cerulean bell

[sinful holly]

held hand is reshuffled into deck and redrawn every played hand?

[minor radish]

Funny idea for a flippy boss could be that discarding/playing cards puts them back into the deck flipped, but Idk if that's too easy 🤔

since you would prob just ignore the flipped cards

[spring silo]

Same lmao I sat with a notebook for a couple hours last night

[quiet oracle]

All cards debuffed for first two hands

[surreal fog]

the revised amber acorn is so clearly going to be a favorite boss its hard to match/top that

[sinful holly]

too boring i think

[spring silo]

Unless it was like One third/half of deck is discarded or the preselected card one

Those are really tricky to work around

[quiet oracle]

It could be until x cards played

[spring silo]

Debuffed until x cards played?

[quiet oracle]

Yes

[surreal fog]

Yeah discarding a portion of the deck is probably the best condender for new final boss, its a very unique and difficult challenge to play around

[sinful holly]

probably for bell? like a wake up call?

[spring silo]

I thought it'd be cool for a boss to have a 'trigger' hand, all cards debuffed until you play that hand

like to do list

But without straight flush

Or a 'trigger' rank

[surreal fog]

how about a boss whos score scale increases based on some condition? Like each discard increases the score threshold by like 0.25X base or something

[spring silo]

I like that a lot

[surreal fog]

Atm all blinds have static "health" but it would be cool if crimson heart modified its health as you played

[spring silo]

Moreso than debuffing

[quiet oracle]

Decrease mult/chips by number of cards left in deck

[spring silo]

It's anti-fishing strategy for final boss

[sinful holly]

crimson heart: oh no i almost die i cast regen spell

[spring silo]

per card discarded would be fun maybe

[surreal fog]

something that can be worked around, but also isnt a death sentence if you need to activate the ability

[crisp iris]

discarding part of the deck is interesting, not entirely sure but it may favor straights compared to heavy 4oak/5oak hands ?

[spring silo]

It's such a difficult balance

[sinful holly]

not really, if it discards all of your 10s and 5s, you’re screwed

[surreal fog]

i was thinking the opposite tbh, straights would probably get screwed if part of the deck got thrown out at random

wheras by the end of a run you could have a billion copies of ace of spades

[spring silo]

It would benefit heavy Xoak monohand

Well no, it wouldn't benefit

It just wouldn't matter to Xoak monohand as much

[surreal fog]

im just trying to think of gameplay mechanics that havent been touched by other bosses yet since thats probably where ill find untapped potential lol

im sure there is more stuff you could do interacting with specific hands played etc but then you are in the weeds competing with other ideas

[spring silo]

Hand size was one I thought could be messed with a bit

Because it's a huge game balance thing already

[surreal fog]

yeah

[spring silo]

And no boss was touching that before

[surreal fog]

reducing hand size also uniquely disadvantages a lot of very popular strategies

[spring silo]

Debuff all 5 card hands possibly?

For the Arm

[surreal fog]

eh, just ends up being a weaker arm that is either still a bit too frustrating or doesnt matter

[crisp iris]

depends on the deck I guess, whether or not you rely on one big hand or several consistant ones, the number of cards you have for your x oak etc. straights have some advantages because they can be made with non specific cards but yeah you can get totally screwed if a central card gets wiped. tbf it feels spooky but manageable in most cases

[spring silo]

Things that mess with Jokers are reserved for the final bosses but even then I struggle to come up with ideas

[surreal fog]

yeah there are only so many ways to mess with jokers

[spring silo]

I like it because it adds uncertainty where there is usually certainty in the contents of your deck

[surreal fog]

i thought of putting eternal on one random joker but that obv doesnt work as a final boss lol

[spring silo]

Shuffling them every round is too harsh

making them bad later on doesn't work for the reason you mention

Making them specifically bad (likely hard coded) isn't emergent

[surreal fog]

how about a boss blind that, if you lose, you get +1 ante instead of dying? You get a second wind where you can try and climb back out of that L but its going to be very hard

[grizzled rover]

that sounds just stronger than every other boss

for the player

better for the player, since no downside

[spring silo]

3 more shops to get Mr. Bones

[grizzled rover]

you don't have to fulfill a condition to win and even if you lose you survive

[spring silo]

I think violet vessel fills that niche kind of already

[surreal fog]

my thinking was creating a sorta "insane comeback" scenario that is full of pogs

but moreso I was just thinking about messing with ante because I think hieroglyph is cool

[weary folio]

could swap discards/hands at the start be a viable boss?

[spring silo]

I love the wall/violet vessel btw I have heard some complaints about them but I find it fun whenever I face them

[spring silo]

It's a cool idea, but as a boss it's not always a downside

it's 50/50 if that is good or bad

[surreal fog]

wall/violet vessel are some of my favs lol, they feel so distinct despite having the simplest design

[weary folio]

I see

[sinful holly]

ya

[spring silo]

Boss effect should always be
Best case - neutral
Worst case - tragic

I don't think there are any beneficial ones

[weary folio]

all hands are level 1?

might be too hard

[quiet oracle]

all editions are nullified (foil/holo/poly on jokers and cards)

[spring silo]

I was really really trying to workshop this one

[surreal fog]

shuffle planet levels maybe

[spring silo]

but it's a hard counter to a certain build type

[quiet oracle]

base chips and mult are halved

[spring silo]

I like that a lot better

[weary folio]

for every hand or just most played?

[quiet oracle]

every hand

[spring silo]

For that I think every hand

[weary folio]

gotcha

I think that would be good then

[grizzled rover]

crazy idea: After every discard and hand, a random tarot is played (on randomly selected cards if applicable). Enhanced cards have inverted effects.

[surreal fog]

is base chips and mult halved different than just a bigger X base?

[crisp iris]

lvl 1 hand feels like a death sentence for many decks (telescope fans in shambles)

[spring silo]

Yes

[grizzled rover]

thats just 4x base

[spring silo]

Because jokers/enhancements/card values etc

[grizzled rover]

because you're dividing score by 4 every time

[spring silo]

Base score yeah but not everything else

[grizzled rover]

oh just base score

🤔

so only affects base hand + planets

[spring silo]

It's anti-planet tech

[weary folio]

is there one that's only play hands with pairs?

I know there's one that's the opposite

[surreal fog]

Id have to see how it feels to play against to know if I like halving base chips/mult

hard to intuitively feel out for me

[spring silo]

No but that isn't the kind of boss I want to add - it makes certain build insta-lose

[quiet oracle]

Final boss idea: a random joker is disabled each hand (does not depend on joker order)

[weary folio]

ah true

[surreal fog]

I kinda like this actually

a less brutal more interesting version of all of the final bosses on the chopping block

[quiet oracle]

Might need to be x1 base chip value since this is very tough

[surreal fog]

yeah just balance it in post

i like having to evaluate how good your setup is on each individual hand though

[spring silo]

Great idea, some variations:
Disable 1 joker per hand played (starts at 0 disabled)
Disable a random joker every discard (resets)

[weary folio]

shuffle jokers every hand?

[grizzled rover]

1 per hand played means no downside if you only need 1 hand to win

[spring silo]

This is an existing boss I am scrapping

[weary folio]

well rats

[minor radish]

the latter can be bypassed, since u can discard, then play trash hand

[spring silo]

True - but it can have higher scaling to compensate

[surreal fog]

I like the simple one random joker debuffed per hand

[spring silo]

By resets I mean the joker changes every discard

[lucid locust]

Final boss idea: “cannot change joker positions during the blind”. Could mess with blueprint/brainstorm users

[minor radish]

oh I see

[spring silo]

The final boss should be a challenge for most builds

[lucid locust]

Yeah i figured it wouldn’t affect too many builds

[spring silo]

Order is usually important - and disabling a joker is also usually important

It doesn't need to be joker based though

[crisp iris]

I don't know if it's too easy but I really like "1 card is always preselected" too

[grizzled rover]

that's cool

[surreal fog]

yeah i think thats up in the existing ideas, i like it a lot

[lucid locust]

Is there a final boss that disables a random joker?

[surreal fog]

used to be

used to be 2 actually

[fickle lily]

verdant de facto disables one currently

[spring silo]

I'll have to play around with it but I think it'll be a fun idea, could increase it to 2 if it's too easy but I don't think it will be

[fickle lily]

unless you play around it

[quiet oracle]

hand size decreases by 1 every time a hand is played

[lucid locust]

I remember one disabling the left most joker but im not sure whats the other one

[grizzled rover]

wasn't random though, you can always reorder once you knew which one it was

[surreal fog]

I think 1 card preselected will already be plenty challenging for a normal boss blind

[spring silo]

Verdent/cerulean bell/crimson heart are all effectively the same Boss

[fickle lily]

preselection is a softer version of -1 hand size im thinking
but i could be wronf

[quiet oracle]

Or discarded?

[fickle lily]

for a normal early boss that seems fine tho

[spring silo]

It isn't because you need to play that card in your hand

[surreal fog]

yeah

[spring silo]

Or discard it

[fickle lily]

ah
i see
then that seems pretty fun to play around

[lucid locust]

Boss idea: disable all joker editions

[surreal fog]

yeah itll be really scary with ride the bus lol

[lucid locust]

Not sure if it was mentioned before

Wait that wouldnt work too well with negative would it

[spring silo]

I saw that before, same with enhancements for cards, I think both might be too specific

[grizzled rover]

card enhancement boss is too specific?

I feel like you get those pretty often

[surreal fog]

you have the option to get them often but they arent always relevant

[minor radish]

but you dont really rely on them to win usually

[spring silo]

Yeah - think of the other 'debuff' bosses and what percentage of the deck they effect

[grizzled rover]

inverted effects could make them actively harmful

[spring silo]

Doesn't seem like it moves the needle enough

[quiet oracle]

combine both?

[grizzled rover]

like -20 chips on bonus card

or 1/2 score on glass

[surreal fog]

inverse of wild is stone i guess

[spring silo]

Anyway I don't love the idea - I think there are better options out there

I don't want to add a boss unless I love it

because the design space is super interesting

[fickle lily]

im trying to think of something that would impact planet cards/hand levels
cant think of any rn that are thought out

[quiet oracle]

All low cards (A,2,3,4,5) are debuffed

or some other subset of number cards

[lucid locust]

Boss idea: instead of +chips from cards played it would be -chips

[spring silo]

I like this idea

[fickle lily]

superposition players

[grizzled rover]

sounds similar to plant

[lucid locust]

I had no idea how to phrase this one

[quiet oracle]

Maybe a prime one where 2,3,5,7 debuffed

[spring silo]

It's hard to group cards outside of suit/face

[quiet oracle]

Feels kinda arbitrary though

[fickle lily]

i mean it sounds interesting
stone cards fall off though lol

[weary folio]

I remember there was a suggestion a while back that was like only the middle cards are playable everything else is debuffed

[quiet oracle]

your most played suit, value (for cards), and hand are debuffed

[timid sundial]

I like the wheel but sometimes I have half my cards flipped over or only like 1 card flipped over in the entire blind. Is the randomness to that boss intended? You could change it to every 4th card is flipped over or make this idea a new boss if the wheel is fine how it is.

[surreal fog]

I like the randomness personally

[quiet oracle]

So if you are in a superposition run you might have all straights, diamonds, and aces debuffed

[surreal fog]

it makes the boss feel different every time

[spring silo]

Randomness is intended yes - there is antisynergy

[timid sundial]

fair enough

[minor radish]

1 in x chance to make drawn card negative (to avoid confusion with edition, it can be called cursed or w/e I just think negative is funny)
negative card - all applied bonuses become negative

• ex. Scary Face, Todd etc. give negative chips and mult
• All chips and mult on the card are negative

[lucid locust]

sounds fun

[fickle lily]

"all cards are flipped until you play the corresponding #" might be too strong
but if i got like three extra hands for that boss it might be interesting
im just thinking whatever comes to my head

[spring silo]

When you play your most played hand, set money to 0

[surreal fog]

play 1 (more?) random spectral cards at start of round

[grizzled rover]

OOF

[fickle lily]

i think thats pretty good
doesnt completely disable winning easily but also clearly incentivizes something else

[surreal fog]

set to 0 is brutal though lol

maybe -5 bucks

[timid sundial]

telescope haters W

[grizzled rover]

I thought about this but I don't think there's enough negative effects

[fickle lily]

thats just teeth+

[spring silo]

It's more of a boss effect for the next ante too - which I like

[quiet oracle]

-$1 each time a joker is triggered

[weary folio]

I just realized tooth is the only money blind

[spring silo]

I think tooth is great as a mid game blind

[fickle lily]

decrease multiplier per $ you have?
too minimal?

[timid sundial]

I could see some of the more build specific boss triggers having non lethal effects like that

[spring silo]

You can't change your money mid round which would be frustrating

[fickle lily]

yeah fair

[lucid locust]

Decrease most played hand level by X

[surreal fog]

How about a final boss that starts at like X8 base but gets -X.25 or -X.50 per blind skipped across the game?

[minor radish]

force my most played hand to be high card for every build 😸

[crisp iris]

when I first fought tooth I was like "yeah it's fine I have nothing I'll just get to 0$ anyway", then I got to like -15$, quite brutal

[spring silo]

In that sense it might be less difficult than the tooth

Since you can't fall below

[timid sundial]

Would "add a random card to deck each discard" be bad since it can help the player?

[spring silo]

I'm adding it to the list

[weary folio]

the list™️

[quiet oracle]

What is the list?

[fickle lily]

feels like a buff

[spring silo]

For the thread

[crisp iris]

It would kinda act as an economy recover check, or you might just play other hands

[fickle lily]

first message im assuming

[spring silo]

Hmmmmmm

actually

[surreal fog]

bloating the deck is a cool downside for a boss blind I think

[spring silo]

that would be the first 'meta' boss, since it changes depending on how you are playing the run

[minor radish]

thats what I said

[spring silo]

So how would I display that?

[minor radish]

you can make ur most played hand high card

every run

while playing straights or w/e

[spring silo]

Should it just say the hand type when you start that ante and it sticks with it?

[surreal fog]

display it the same way you display what card will come from the fool, just in the area where the boss text is

let it change dynamically

[spring silo]

That's fine

[spring silo]

It thought it might be cool (almost a different idea) for it to be 'set' once the ante starts, so you can pivot if needed

Less hard-counter-y

[grizzled rover]

what if super needle final boss, where it has a small requirement, but you must beat it X times (perhaps X even equals the number of your starting hands)

[minor radish]

shrug cant you just spend all your money before that boss if u know its ur most played hand 🤔

[spring silo]

Yes!

[surreal fog]

I think it changing dynamically is kinda an edge case since its not suuuuuuper common that you have two hands close enough to most played that you could easily change it during a single blind

itd just end up being a bit confusing if its not dynamic, imo

[weary folio]

that's artificially reducing your money anyways

[surreal fog]

it wouldnt matter 99% of the time, but when it comes up itd be unintuitive

[spring silo]

What I mean is that it would just say the hand name

[crisp iris]

It has to be clearly displayed yeah, so new players aren't surprised.

[spring silo]

like 'If you play a straight, set money to 0'

[minor radish]

well it's definitely easier than most of the bosses then, but I don't mind

[spring silo]

And in the collection it'd say the most played hand

[surreal fog]

OH I SEE

its like, meta meta

[spring silo]

It's a boss for later Antes - since it'll ruin your econ if you do that

[surreal fog]

I thought you meant meta as in between blinds, not meta between runs

[spring silo]

No lol

[minor radish]

ah, I see, Idk how it works with 10 antes

[spring silo]

Sorry

[minor radish]

only played this demo

[crisp iris]

I think both are needed, if it doesn't say this is the most played hand, players may assume it's random

[spring silo]

It's just for the run - but it doesn't say the phrase 'most played hand this run'

it'd just show the actual handname itself

[grizzled rover]

most played hand of all time for most players will be high card

[spring silo]

Less confusing

[grizzled rover]

which is adequately punishing but also less interesting

[spring silo]

In the collection screen it would say [most played hand this run]

[surreal fog]

Gotcha

I feel like "Most played hand this run (Straight)" would be best for me personally but I understand wanting to simplify

[spring silo]

I wanted to preamble with this - but if you look at the boss effects now they are all very very simple. Like 10 word descriptions. It's something that needs to be baked in to any design

The bosses can't just be clever they need to be written in crayon

[lucid locust]

Final boss idea: disable most used joker/joker you’ve had for the longest time

[lucid locust]

Same thing worded differently

[surreal fog]

Hmmmmm I like it conceptually but it would require pen and paper tracking info to properly play with its mechanic

[lucid locust]

isn’t it already tracked?

For most used jokers

[spring silo]

It's not displayed anywhere

[surreal fog]

^

its not info the player has available

[spring silo]

Nor should it be when it doesn't matter for anything else in the run

[remote lily]

I think gwaizer meant over all most used. Accountwide rather than runwide.

[lucid locust]

I mean over all most used wouldnt always affect the played

[surreal fog]

Accountwide would just mean it only matters with that specific joker which is kinda lame

[lucid locust]

But my intention was during the run

[remote lily]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[lucid locust]

And it would tell the player which joker it is

[spring silo]

I'm not adding meta effects like that to the game - trying to remove them. For some players that incentivizes grinding boring play overall for a slight edge elsewhere

[surreal fog]

I like the concept of "disable your best joker" but the player would need to know the rankings to properly engage with the content

[spring silo]

Over the course of the run however - I think that is an interesting idea

[surreal fog]

yea

[lucid locust]

yeah

[spring silo]

But unfortunatly not something the player will know

[grizzled rover]

how do you determine which jokers are most used during the nun

number of triggers? rounds?

[surreal fog]

i assume itd be rounds you held it

[lucid locust]

it could be “disables most used joker so far {name of joker}”

[surreal fog]

since thats how its tracked in the stats

[spring silo]

Number of rounds is all I use

[remote lily]

And it could lead to cases where the disabled joker has no bearing on hands played. (E.g. I have had egg since round one. Oh no muh egg got disabled since I’ve had it for the longest.)

[spring silo]

That is already the case with Verdent

[weary folio]

most and least used poker hands swap levels?

[spring silo]

If anything it's better than Verdent for that

[remote lily]

Uh oh

Why have you done this

[surreal fog]

how do you choose least used when 5 have been played 0 times?

random?

[spring silo]

omg that gave me an INCREDIBLE joker idea

[grizzled rover]

were there any good boss ideas in #1155557846805643434 ?

[surreal fog]

uh oh

[lucid locust]

Oh no

[remote lily]

Lowest score combo

[weary folio]

uh oh

[thorny shard]

I’m a big fan of having more facedown effects

[spring silo]

like Libra in Isaac - keeps all your poker hand chips/mults balanced

[weary folio]

I assume random

[spring silo]

So they are all worth the same

And all planets upgrade everything equally

[surreal fog]

so every planet card increases every base but only a slight amount?

yeah thats awesome

[spring silo]

Yeah

[grizzled rover]

that sounds awful lol

[lucid locust]

Sounds sick

[weary folio]

the duality of man

[surreal fog]

It sounds situationally good! My favorite kind of good!

[thorny shard]

That’s pretty interesting

[grizzled rover]

every planet only have 1/9 the effectiveness? never taking

[lucid locust]

Could go crazy with multiplying mults

[spring silo]

Suddenly every planet card is worth taking

[thorny shard]

But EVERY planet increase all of them

[weary folio]

I'm evil

[fickle lily]

sounds pretty good if every planet gave pluto level mults

[thorny shard]

Instead of 1 per hand

[quiet oracle]

synergy with constellation

[weary folio]

constellation synergy

[fickle lily]

i get the idea behind it
sounds interesting

[grizzled rover]

I'd rather fish for planets of the hands I play most rather than take something that only buffs my best hand a little

[spring silo]

I think it's at least interesting - lots of soft synergy

[thorny shard]

Astronomer synergy 😳

[spring silo]

I don't think it'd be for monohand builds

[lucid locust]

Are draws pre determined?

[grizzled rover]

then the question is how many hand type does a player have to build into for it to be worth it

because spreading over 9 hands is very, very thin

[crisp iris]

I like jack of all trades options (it's cool with satellite too).

[spring silo]

Oh also upgrading your hands with, say, saturn is almost as good as pluto for high cards

So it might even be a high card buff

[grizzled rover]

Saturn is straights, correct

+30/+3

[lucid locust]

If they are how about a boss that places your X most used cards to the bottom of the deck

[grizzled rover]

divided by 9 is +3.33/+.33

[spring silo]

Or Neptune

[remote lily]

Yes

[grizzled rover]

Pluto is already +10/+1

so 1/3 effectiveness

[spring silo]

1/3 effectiveness but way more often

I think it has merit, could be interesting

[grizzled rover]

are you sure? because Saturn is still one specific planet just like mercury is

and Saturn is one of the best in this case

[quiet oracle]

telescope makes it much more common without that joker

anyway we are kinda getting off topic

[thorny shard]

There’s the voucher that makes planets more common in the shop, synergy there too

[quiet oracle]

how about a boss where hands always play with the next lowest contained hand

[weary folio]

like the base scoring is always the lowest possible base?

[quiet oracle]

So 5oak would play as 4oak, full house would play as 3oak, etc

[weary folio]

ah

[spring silo]

I think that would be a pretty hard counter to most builds

[quiet oracle]

^with this as well?

[spring silo]

Anything with upgraded hand levels essentially

[grizzled rover]

straights build -> high card lmao

[weary folio]

high card builders laughing rn

[spring silo]

How about gains X0.1 base per planet card / tarot card/ booster pack/ etc used this run?

Numbers/card type adjustable

[quiet oracle]

Just buffed constellation

[grizzled rover]

so it's wall/vessel, but only sometimes

[quiet oracle]

Might need to be x0.05 or just for tarots

[quiet oracle]

Oh wait this is boss

nvm

[spring silo]

It's a boss 🙂

[surreal fog]

i like this bcuz most of the time itll just be a bit stronger but 8 ball/constellation runs will have a serious challenge

and i think its a fair fight

[spring silo]

More tarots should mean more powerful run in general, so it scales kinda

[grizzled rover]

doesn't sound distinct enough from wall and vessel to me. it's just a tossup of how close

[surreal fog]

it depends on how its balanced but i think its meaningfully different since it scales based on your actions

[grizzled rover]

then why would wall exist

either wall is balanced or this is balanced, one way or another you have to get stronger

[surreal fog]

idk why these two need to compete, the only thing thats similar is that the score to beat can be large

wall is static, this concept isnt

[spring silo]

Doesn't have to be tarots/planets/packs, could be something else entirely

like rerolls, cards played this ante

money

[weary folio]

packs opened?

or packs bought actually

[thorny shard]

#1170704202025152585 message interesting idea from the boss suggestions

[surreal fog]

i think dynamic score is a good design space to explore no matter, could probably squeeze out a few concepts from it

[spring silo]

The concept is very interesting - but imo too complex

[surreal fog]

bit out of scope for crayon

[thorny shard]

I do really like the idea of the raising the blind requirement based on actions taken during the boss

[weary folio]

is the list pinned in here or no

[surreal fog]

oh it should be pinned

[weary folio]

tyty

[spring silo]

freaking discord won't let me pin the main message for the thread

This thread is attached to a message in #🧪・experimental

[surreal fog]

classic

[spring silo]

That message has the list

[surreal fog]

pin the 🧵 instead

just for easy access

[spring silo]

Boss design ain't easy

[thorny shard]

“Sets money to 0” is fun when you’re in debt lol

[spring silo]

Some of these will get chopped once they're implemented and inevitably have unforseen design issues

[weary folio]

we could have a mr. bones boss?

if first hand less than 25% of blind you lose

[thorny shard]

#1170010851072295003 message here’s another

[spring silo]

I think this interests me because you start scaling the boss after you know it's coming

Instead of potentially avoiding using tarots during a run because you know that the boss exists

[surreal fog]

yeah for sure

[thorny shard]

Ooh yeah “this ante” is interesting

[spring silo]

I read through all the boss blind suggestions last night! That one has an issue in that you need to pull out a calculator

[thorny shard]

Ah

[surreal fog]

I like "this ante" as a broader concept because it makes you feel pressured by the boss blind for the whole time you can see it

[spring silo]

Me too - I think there could be some interesting designs there

[thorny shard]

Without discouraging strategies for full runs either

[spring silo]

'All cards played this ante are debuffed'

[thorny shard]

Like that one STS boss

[surreal fog]

Also some fun interactions with boss blind rerolling - it makes rerolling late better but also thats high risk since you have reduced time to prep for whatever it rolls into

[spring silo]

Or all played cards are discarded to start the boss

[remote lily]

Base of boss blind increases by mult of last hand divided by 100?

[surreal fog]

calculator moment

[remote lily]

Yeah :/

[spring silo]

Crayon as well

[surreal fog]

we are just speaking in goddamn tongues now

[spring silo]

I'm lucky I have a smooth brain because it acts like a crayon filter

[remote lily]

I don’t know what crayon on means in this context and at this point I’m too afraid too ask.

Autocorrect goes hard

[spring silo]

It means that the effect should be very very simple to explain

And understand

[remote lily]

Ah ok

[spring silo]

It can still be elegant, but the rule itself should be simple

Simple rules breed elegant design in games imo

[surreal fog]

also stronger emergent gameplay

[quiet oracle]

every other/3rd card is automatically discarded

[surreal fog]

the simpler effects are, the more they bump into eachother

[remote lily]

Deleted* 😈

[spring silo]

What does this mean, whenever they are drawn to hand?

[quiet oracle]

yeah

[surreal fog]

i assume drawn yeah

[spring silo]

This seems like the one idea on the list already

Where your deck starts partially discarded

[grizzled rover]

how hard would a final boss be where every card is facedown

[quiet oracle]

It’s pretty much a way to dynamically do that idea without discarding a bunch of cards first (so only choose one of them)

[surreal fog]

with the deck partially discarded at the start you have foresight though

[spring silo]

Super hard but also might be kinda fun?

[surreal fog]

you wouldnt know which cards are going to get discarded ahead of time here

[spring silo]

Ah I see

Are they too similar? I like both

But I don't think I could have both

I'd pick one

[surreal fog]

fully facedown would be interesting but also basically require specific information that isnt obvious, like what order the suits sort in

[weary folio]

I think suits are ordered like a fresh deck of cards

[surreal fog]

discard as you go is probably simpler to explain/understand

[grizzled rover]

another final boss: has the combined effects of every boss before (or X previous)

[thorny shard]

could be like, 1 in 7 cards are drawn face-up

anti wheel

[weary folio]

so spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds I think

[quiet oracle]

I think that would only work if you can see the hands created by cards face down for that boss, which doesn’t happen in the Wheel

[spring silo]

Thoughts on the face down face card one?

[quiet oracle]

That seems interesting

[surreal fog]

I like it

[grizzled rover]

you have ways to play around a bit, like the sort buttons, played hands, and tarots flipping cards

[remote lily]

Yes

[surreal fog]

good partial information

[thorny shard]

an easier boss i think but i like it more than the plant

[weary folio]

abandoned deck would go hard though

[surreal fog]

this isnt obvious information and unless its stated in the game i wouldnt want to rely on this outside knowledge

[weary folio]

I feel like this information could be determined through the game itself however

if you sort by suit you can see what the order is

[quiet oracle]

What about a boss that disables deck viewing?

[spring silo]

That is the forced order yeah, but it's not explicit

[thorny shard]

if it was very few face-up cards instead of exclusively face-down youd have enough info to figure some stuff out without suit order knowledge

[surreal fog]

Unless you are in this theoretical boss that requires the info, it requires you to have info that is no longer available

[grizzled rover]

1/7 cards face up is very funny

[weary folio]

that's true yeah

[surreal fog]

I like the idea of 1/7 face down only showing up in the first half of the run, and 1/7 face up only showing up in the second half or a final boss lol

[grizzled rover]

I feel like it'd have to be final boss

[spring silo]

Here are the litmus tests for boss blinds

• Crayon: Is the concept simple
• Calculator: does it incentivize an external calculator tool
• Pen and Paper: Does it incentivize writing information down
• Hard counter: Do you just lose if you face this boss with a common build
• Balance: Effect should be somewhere between neutral and tragic depending on the run

[grizzled rover]

making a poker hand when you only know what one or even none of the cards are is very difficult

[thorny shard]

i agree with it being a final boss

gives you more time to do deck manip as well

[surreal fog]

should also add that a boss's effect should be approximately neutral to terrible

[thorny shard]

i like this idea, but im worried for horrible combos like needle + wall

[spring silo]

I guess I don't know how the final bosses fit into that

Slightly harder? Slightly more intrusive rules?

[weary folio]

two random bosses maybe?

[grizzled rover]

needle wall lmao

[weary folio]

although that might be too hard

[surreal fog]

Final bosses have effects that generally affect all playstyles

and are more difficult

that's how I distinguish them in my head anyway

[spring silo]

I think -hand size, while very simple, would make for a good final boss

Because it really changes how you play

[surreal fog]

Yeah for sure

[grizzled rover]

how much does it get countered by +hand size

I would wager it would get countered quite hard

[spring silo]

It would yeah

[thorny shard]

a really good burnt joker run wouldnt care about it at all

[spring silo]

That's okay though, negatives hard counter verdant

Bosses can have counters

[thorny shard]

it could SET the hand size to something

[surreal fog]

^ was typing that

[thorny shard]

lol

[spring silo]

I like that less

[thorny shard]

yeah thats just a burnt joker hard counter

[surreal fog]

all it does really is squash an edge case lol

[thorny shard]

it could be % based

[grizzled rover]

could also do like 2/3 or 3/4 hand size or something

[spring silo]

What do you mean?

Oh

Like fractional I see

[thorny shard]

i like that a lot more

[surreal fog]

ohhhhhhh yeah I like that

[grizzled rover]

it does get weird with rounding, the players wouldn't know what to expect

[quiet oracle]

#1174373268640239656 message

[crisp iris]

I prefer a fixed round number

[weary folio]

floor(3/4 hand size)

[grizzled rover]

does (god forbid) 6 hand size with 3/4 round to 4 or 5

[sinful holly]

random idea: all even / odd cards are debuffed (two different bosses)

[quiet oracle]

Decreasing it over time probably is the best

[spring silo]

I had that in the idea list already

Both are there

[thorny shard]

doesnt outright kill runs with lower hand size, does have an actual effect against massive hand size

[spring silo]

Both seem fun in slightly different ways

I'm still leaning towards -1 or 2 instead of a fraction of percentage

Burnt is a good card and I don't think the fractional punishment changes that much. It'd do so at the cost of Crayon

[grizzled rover]

i think fractional is worse, yeah

normal boss idea: when you play a hand or discard, draw exactly 3 cards

[spring silo]

Love that

[grizzled rover]

hand gets smaller when playing 4 or more, and gets bigger when 2 or less

[spring silo]

Super interesting idea

Idea is very simple but obvious to see the emergent complexity

It's sometimes good though

[weary folio]

draw 2 then instead of 3?

only positive would be high card then

[sinful holly]

how is this idea local (same theme around plant)

[thorny shard]

it could still be constrained to your max hand size

[grizzled rover]

if you abuse it for large hand size, you still have to deal with the fact that you can only go through so far in your deck, so if you have one specific hand in abandoned deck for example, you're not guaranteed it as much

[thorny shard]

i like the idea

[sinful holly]

yea

[weary folio]

I still like -1 hand size per hand played but this is good too

[spring silo]

The max hand size constraint fixes the idea for me, is it better or worse like that?

[grizzled rover]

I feel limiting to max hand size is too punishing

[spring silo]

I think it would be less punishing than Water in most cases

Worse for hands played, better for discards

[thorny shard]

heres a silly idea- all your jokers are shuffled into your deck (so you can only get them back when you draw them)

[grizzled rover]

there's a lot of cases where you're looking for outs, which is gated by less drawn cards to begin with. you might have a bigger hand size by overdrawing, but you'll still be more constrained in your possible hands

[spring silo]

I saw that months ago and I agree it seems super interesting, too complex though

[grizzled rover]

like if you need a 3 or 9 for a full house but don't draw it because you only draw 3 cards a discard, even though your hand size is large

[thorny shard]

really? i feel like its pretty simple

[grizzled rover]

you'd still have to adapt

[sinful holly]

code wise

[thorny shard]

thats a fair point

[spring silo]

Not code wise no

[crisp iris]

lmao that's a fun idea. Imagine bottom decking all jokers though

[sinful holly]

lol

[spring silo]

Explaining the concept would be tough to do properly without leaving the player with a bunch of questions

[spring silo]

I think I'm on board

It's a different play style so even if it's better for that build it's only one Ante

[weary folio]

draw half the deck but you have one hand and no discards

[spring silo]

Omg

[weary folio]

different needle

[sinful holly]

that would be a pain to select the cards you want

[spring silo]

That's great

True

[sinful holly]

but funny tho

[spring silo]

UI wise it'd suck

[grizzled rover]

hope your best hand is better than the normal boss score in one hit

[spring silo]

Could see that being frustrating yeah

[sinful holly]

that’s needle x water

[spring silo]

That's got Calculator concerns

[grizzled rover]

I assumed that's why needle was half score in the first place

[sinful holly]

yea

[weary folio]

how would ~30 cards look in the draw pile anyways

I assume not great

[surreal fog]

I mean you could do "draw half of deck, no more draws"

[grizzled rover]

that one works I think

[weary folio]

that works

[thorny shard]

ooh thats fun

[sinful holly]

search up balatro on youtube and find the breaking balatro run video thing

[spring silo]

Luckily since Balatro is visually designed from something that already solved this issue, it's still readable with a ton of cards

[grizzled rover]

maybe two rows of cards 👀

[spring silo]

Because playing card pips are designed for that

[sinful holly]

yea

two rows of cards would be weird imo

i don’t hold my 33 card uno hand in two rows

[grizzled rover]

skill issue

[spring silo]

Oof

[weary folio]

oh my that's a lot of cards

[sinful holly]

ikr

[spring silo]

Is the 'draw half the deck' idea better than anything on the list?

[surreal fog]

A joker along these lines would probably go hard too tbh

[weary folio]

better than straight -2 hand size?

considering there's already -1 per hand played

[surreal fog]

I prefer it over the debuff straight etc one

[spring silo]

Ah yeah true

[weary folio]

oh you meant the already existing list

[thorny shard]

Debuff bosses are less interesting but still useful for early antes imo

[surreal fog]

Yeah we just prob don't need more

[spring silo]

I like debuffing specific hands for other reasons though

[sinful holly]

how bout odd/even cards

[weary folio]

we could have a debuff [hand], hand is chosen when blind selected?

[spring silo]

Feels too random/pointless

[sinful holly]

alr

makes sense

[surreal fog]

Yeah most of the time does nothing, sometimes a huge fuck you

[sinful holly]

that’s the plant in abandoned deck

[spring silo]

Suit debuffs are targeted to an okay degree

[sinful holly]

wait my name is brown

🥳

[weary folio]

bronze

[spring silo]

And face cards are a whole thing on their own

Plus debuffed cards don't seem very interesting in general so I'm happy to consider other ideas

[sinful holly]

discord being weird

yea

debuffed cards are more like no chips and enhancements

[lucid locust]

im still wondering how having face cards being drawn downward would affect the player

[weary folio]

harder to use face cards

[grizzled rover]

is that going to replace the plant?

[sinful holly]

idk

[weary folio]

hurts x of a kind/straight

[sinful holly]

yea

[spring silo]

I'll keep the plant I think

[lucid locust]

Completely forgot about that

[spring silo]

I just love flippy boss ideas

[lucid locust]

I was just thinking about the jokers that rely on face cards

[surreal fog]

the plant works because face cards specifically have a lot of antisynergy with debuff

[weary folio]

tbf it hurts every hand if you use face cards in general

[surreal fog]

lots of jokers specifically trigger on face cards

[spring silo]

In full game face cards are important

[weary folio]

it's just a question of whether we should debuff or flip

[spring silo]

Why not 2 bosses?

[surreal fog]

debuff makes more sense for face cards because of the specific antisynergy

but yeah they dont need to be exclusive

we have 4 suit debuff bosses, why limit ourselves to only debuff or flip for faces

[weary folio]

def possible but I feel it's too similar to justify two

[sinful holly]

pariedolia [sic] with face cards drawn face down

[grizzled rover]

weird idea: "at start of round, shuffle all tarots into your deck"

[weary folio]

although there are 4 bosses for debuffing each suit so idk

[spring silo]

Pareidolia and sock/buskin are a thing

[sinful holly]

yea

[thorny shard]

i really like the concept of non-playing-cards being shuffled into your deck

just in general

[spring silo]

The question a player would have is what does that mean

[thorny shard]

i think its okay for them to have that question if it gets answered later

[grizzled rover]

I'm having trouble seeing what's ambiguous about that

[lucid locust]

How about a boss that disables a random joker and it would change after each hand

[thorny shard]

me too, it feels pretty straightforward

[lucid locust]

The disabled joker ofc*

[quiet oracle]

Already thought of this one

It’s a very good idea though

[spring silo]

Do I play my Jokers now? Do I play them to add them to the joker area?

Not poo-pooing, if it's easily crayonable I'm happy to add it

[grizzled rover]

those questions would be answered as soon as they enter the hand

[spring silo]

Can they be answered before?

[grizzled rover]

I assume they'd move back to the joker bar when drawn

[weary folio]

you can only play hands that have been upgraded?

[grizzled rover]

do they need to be? I don't see what changes about player strategy if they're unsure

[quiet oracle]

Maybe you could play them when they are in your hand like stone cards, then they go to joker area

[surreal fog]

yeah I also assumed they would pop out of hand on draw

[spring silo]

It's introducing a new mechanic I'd like to tutorialize if possible

[sinful holly]

start of blind: shuffle 1/4 deck size of blank cards temporarily into deck (blank cards act as stone cards with no chips)

[spring silo]

Because not all gamers are like you folks

[thorny shard]

if the end result is simple i dont think its necessary to explain it beforehand

[grizzled rover]

I'm not as much of a fan of the joker one btw, seems too harsh to draw so far through your deck to find things you absolutely need to score enough

[sinful holly]

yea

[spring silo]

What's the tarot one?

Do you get free Tarots?

[grizzled rover]

sure, at the cost of normal card draws

[spring silo]

That almost seems like a bonus more than a drawback

Like a joker

[sinful holly]

yea

[spring silo]

Could be a Joker though

[grizzled rover]

depends how badly you need to hit the right draws to win the round

[thorny shard]

if the jokers (or consumables) just go into the joker/consumable slots respectively on draw, theres nothing really more to explain

[spring silo]

Jokers get more text to describe effects

[thorny shard]

you can just see it happens

[grizzled rover]

because tarots aren't scorable in poker hands

they're clogging up the draws for actual hands, although they do provide a bonus

that as a joker could be cool as well though

[spring silo]

So you have a hand size of 8, you draw 7 playing cards and a tarot, what happens?

It goes to consumable area immediately?

And you have 7/8?

[grizzled rover]

would it be able to be used from hand?

that's what I had in mind

[thorny shard]

i could see tarots getting to stay in hand

[grizzled rover]

it'd stay there so the hand size doesn't have issues

[thorny shard]

"play hand" can be greyed out if a tarot in hand is selected

no issues there

[spring silo]

That seems like a net positive most of the time I think, so more likely a Joker

The Balance litmus test, should be at best neutral

[thorny shard]

seems like a fun joker :)

[grizzled rover]

minus hand size is already established to be a downside, and in many cases the tarots would do that

[spring silo]

Tarot could win you the round though

If it's glass for example, or anything really

[weary folio]

does not permanent -1 hand size outweigh free tarot

that's the question

[spring silo]

Yeah it's a negative and a positive

[surreal fog]

For a boss you could just shuffle blank cards into your deck, with blank cards being unplayable. But that requires implementing new systems

[spring silo]

Thought about this a lot yesterday too

And making them permanent somehow

[surreal fog]

Its been brought up a few times in #1155557846805643434 but I think blank cards have good design space

[weary folio]

instead of stone cards we get rubble cards

[surreal fog]

i dont even think they need to be permanent, wasting discard space on them is already kinda tough

[weary folio]

no chips no nothing

[spring silo]

What if you enhance one?

Should it stay? Be removed?

[grizzled rover]

depends if they always score like stones

[spring silo]

I think they would yeah

[lucid locust]

“Disables a random joker, changes after every hand”

[spring silo]

It'd be the same as a stone but no chips to start

[lucid locust]

tried to crayon it as much as i can

Still don’t think it’s good enough

[thorny shard]

blank cards is pretty interesting

[surreal fog]

For the boss, I was just thinking temporarily shuffle them in, but for other areas of design space they should be permanent

in which case you could totally enhance them but only the "in hand" enhancements would really help, or stone

[spring silo]

That's what I mean, what if I DNA a blank card or enhance one during the boss?

Still remove or keep?

It's not a code question it's a player experience one

[weary folio]

still remove imo

[surreal fog]

DNA keep, enhance remove

[quiet oracle]

Could be worded like this:

#1174373268640239656 message

But thunk has already seen (and liked!) this idea

[surreal fog]

in my head, the boss adds X blank cards and then removes those blank cards at the end

[weary folio]

you can use them to beat the boss but at the risk of wasting an enhancement for a card you'll never play again

[surreal fog]

DNA would create a new blank card that the boss wouldnt care to remove, its not its responsibility anymore

[spring silo]

That seems complicated

[thorny shard]

DNA is an edge case though

[spring silo]

Keeping the cards might have some other downsides but it's less complicated

[surreal fog]

Thats just my intuition, not necessarily the correct way to do it

its how I would assume it works if it were in the game

[thorny shard]

im not against making them permanent

[surreal fog]

I mean you could just make it a final boss and make them permanent

[spring silo]

"Adds 8 permanent blank cards to your deck"

[surreal fog]

so it doesnt really affect a typical run

[thorny shard]

actually it could be pretty interesting to have certain bosses affect things outside the 1 blind

[spring silo]

Ah dang even then there's an issue

'whats a blank card?'

[surreal fog]

tool tip

[grizzled rover]

blank cards are kinda boring imo. they're always discards, no question

[weary folio]

double back card

[spring silo]

I can't tooltip everywhere - that one is hard to even think of where I'd show that info

[grizzled rover]

honestly blank cards is random minus hand size

which is minus hand size but not fun

[thorny shard]

how about a boss that lowers the hand level each play?

[quiet oracle]

-1 hand level each time hand is played

[surreal fog]

I think blank cards open up interesting design space & could have some cool synergy with joker support

[spring silo]

The money ones do this, I agree I think they're cool mid run bosses

[weary folio]

level 0 hands

[surreal fog]

like a joker thats +X0.25 mult per blank card in deck or something

or maybe just in hand

[thorny shard]

oh yeah true!

[quiet oracle]

level -2 high card

[crisp iris]

status/curse cards are interesting if they can in some situations be turned into upsides. I'm not sure I like them in the context of balatro's design though

[spring silo]

I think I'll nix blanks for now, too much scope for a boss at the moment

But I really like the idea

[surreal fog]

Mhm def too much if its going to be a single boss

[spring silo]

Even if it's more than just a boss

[surreal fog]

id love to see them show up sometime post-launch with full support though

[spring silo]

Not looking to make my list longer, just want to redo these few bosses with more fun abilities

I think the list is looking good though

[weary folio]

all we need now are cool names

[spring silo]

I'll post the list here in a sec

[crisp iris]

yeah, lots of exciting stuff

[quiet oracle]

will there be another poll like with the tag discussion?

[spring silo]

No new names/art

[spring silo]

Yes

[thorny shard]

level 0 hands as a concept have been talked about before

it would just be 0 base score

[spring silo]

0x1?

[grizzled rover]

0/0

[thorny shard]

0x1 is better imo

[weary folio]

aw

[surreal fog]

1 should be the min mult possible imo

[spring silo]

I'd assume base multiplier is 1 for chips no matter what

[sinful holly]

yea

[spring silo]

Unless explicitly lowered

[surreal fog]

yeah it doesnt make much sense to go below 1 mult

[spring silo]

What is a negative Chip?

IRL you can't do that

[grizzled rover]

when I eat my Doritos too fast

[weary folio]

you've never seen me at a casino then

[thorny shard]

in any case, subtracting hand levels is interesting design space not used anywhere else we've seen

[spring silo]

yeah sorry if this wasn't stated but instead of adding new bosses I thought changing the bad ones so the average boss quality is higher would actually be way better

In addition to being easier for me

[weary folio]

ah

makes sense

[spring silo]

30 is a lot already

Like runs already feel different

[grizzled rover]

I don't know what those chopped bosses do normally

[surreal fog]

mostly hard counters or boring abilities

[arctic widget]

What "bad bosses" are left to change?

[sinful holly]

same here, but i heard of most of them

[spring silo]

The ones in the list #🧪・experimental

[grizzled rover]

yeah but if we're trying to rework rather than overhaul knowing their current abilities makes sense no?

[spring silo]

Yes

I'll post those too

[thorny shard]

fish/ox would both be good candidates to replace with "-1 hand level each time hand is played"

[spring silo]

We can assign abilities to the open blinds

[surreal fog]

i think it was good to not have their abilities posted at first so we could come up wtih fresh ideas instead of just rehasing the existing bad ones

now that we have a good list of ideas we can assign them properly

[sinful holly]

oh yeah why is the flint contains a symbol not a part of the phoenician alphabet

[grizzled rover]

how much were the bosses matched to abilities thematically?

[spring silo]

Uhhhh

[weary folio]

the house is pretty matched

[grizzled rover]

I know wheel kind of matches

[surreal fog]

ran outta letters lol

[spring silo]

They were kinda used as inspiration for the abilities

[sinful holly]

there are more i think? lemme c

[spring silo]

But this direction makes more sense for game design

[thorny shard]

oh hey i made bronze I as well!

didnt notice cause im already blue lol

[grizzled rover]

I'm still 2 :)

[weary folio]

I'll get there one day

[grizzled rover]

wonder how high they make those tiers

gold? platinum? precious gems?

[sinful holly]

hmm

idk

[weary folio]

also on the new ideas for old art

[surreal fog]

i almost want like a tierlistmaker style of drag and drop thing for assigning new abilities to the old bosses lol

[weary folio]

the mark could now be 1 card preselected?

[surreal fog]

iirc localthunk was thinking manacle for preselected, like you are chained to that card

[weary folio]

understandable

[sinful holly]

oh ya

[grizzled rover]

ox because card is stubborn like ox

[weary folio]

there's 13 on chopping block and 12 new ideas in the list

so we have wiggle room

the flint could be half of deck is discarded

cuz the deck got burned

[sinful holly]

aw man chat died

nvm

[lucid locust]

How about if hand contains (hand), halves your money

[sinful holly]

we have play [most played hand] set money to 0

[lucid locust]

Yeah but this doesnt have to be your most played hand

But you’re right they are pretty similar

[weary folio]

negative to do list

[sinful holly]

but worse in a sense

[weary folio]

yeah cuz -1/2 is probably greater than +4

could work as a boss

[sinful holly]

when you have 90 in bank and you reroll boss blind and get this boss

[weary folio]

is (hand) chosen after blind or after hand played

[sinful holly]

and this already exists as an idea

[lucid locust]

My idea was (hand) would remain the same but it could change after every hand

Whatever works best

[sinful holly]

most played hand isnt always the hand you’re about to play

like high card being the highest cuz you have bus

[lucid locust]

The idea was “contains” rather than the played hand itself, like “contains a pair” or something like that

Or it could just be a any specific hand

[weary folio]

I wonder what local is typing

[grizzled rover]

boss abilities we're replacing i think

[lucid locust]

Probably the poll

[spring silo]

New possible effects:
**- -2 Hand Size

• All Jokers start flipped and shuffled
• First hand of round is drawn face down
• One third/half of deck is discarded
• -1 hand size per hand played
• 1 card is always preselected
• DEBUFF hand if contains a: Straight, Flush, 3oak (debuff all cards instead of - autodiscarding them)
• All face cards drawn face down
• Discard 2 (more?) per hand played (This is specifically a Hook buff)
• Must alternate Plays and Discards
• Increase required score by 0.1X per card discarded
• Playing a [most played hand this run] sets money to $0
• Base Chips and Mult are halved
• Random Joker is disabled per hand played
• Gains X0.1 Base per card played this ante
• All cards played this Ante are debuffed
• Draw half your deck to hand, no more cards are drawn this round
• After Play or Discard, draw exactly 3 cards
• Decrease played hand level by 1**

Old bosses/effects:
**- The Hook: discard 1 random card per hand played

• The Ox: All hands start at 1 chip
• The House: No full houses (yeets em)
• The Arm: Must play fewer than 5 cards (yeets em)
• The Fish: All hands start at 1 mult
• The Mancle: Subtract discards from mult
• The Serpent: Subtract hand level from mult
• The Pillar: No Straights (yeets em)
• The Flint: No Flushes ('yeets em)
• The Mark: No hands that contain a pair (yeets em)
• Amber Acorn: Shuffles jokers every hand
• Crimson Heart: Leftmost joker disabled
• Cerulean Bell: Rightmost joker disabled**

[weary folio]

ah that's what they're typing

[surreal fog]

yeets em

[grizzled rover]

yeets em

[spring silo]

yeets em

[weary folio]

yeets em

[sinful holly]

yeets em

[grizzled rover]

https://tenor.com/view/yeet-yeet-original-yeet-the-original-gif-24885938

[spring silo]

Kk poll time - I'll post it here and make sure not to message in the thread for a few mins, I'll just delete the messages.

[weary folio]

baller

[grizzled rover]

🤐

[sinful holly]

alr

[primal gust]

**:bar_chart: [choose ~5 answers] Which of these Boss blind ideas do you think is the most well designed, interesting, fun, challenging, and fair? ** Please consider the criteria from this message: #1174373268640239656 message ** **

🇦 -2 Hand Size
🇧 All Jokers start flipped and shuffled
🇨 First hand of round is drawn face down
🇩 One third/half of deck is discarded
🇪 -1 hand size per hand played
🇫 DEBUFF hand if contains a: Straight, Flush, 3oak (debuff all cards instead of - autodiscarding them)
🇬 All face cards drawn face down
🇭 Discard 2 (more?) per hand played
🇮 Must alternate Plays and Discards
🇯 Increase required score by 0.1X per card discarded
🇰 Playing a [most played hand this run] sets money to $0
🇱 Base Chips and Mult are halved
🇲 Random Joker is disabled per hand played
🇳 Gains X0.1 Base per card played this ante
🇴 All cards played this Ante are debuffed
🇵 Draw half your deck to hand, no more cards are drawn this round
🇶 After Play or Discard, draw exactly 3 cards
🇷 Decrease played hand level by 1

[spring silo]

Okay I think that's probably close enough for some trends. Some thoughts I have:

• M seems very high for what I imagine might be a RNG heavy boss with less autonomy, but I am curious to hear thoughts on it
• N and O both seem like interesting ways to give player agency by showing them the boss before it starts impacting them, so they can play around it. Is there a better way to implement this idea than N and O?
• A is (I think) the harder version of E, I would be worried that most players won't even engage with that boss if they win in the first hand or 2
• P in concept is fantastic, but from a UX standpoint it might not be possible, I'll have to see how it feels to have a million cards in hand as part of the core experience. If it's possible to go infinite with Burnt rarely, that's one thing but having that in a normal boss is another thing entirely

Overall though these are literally all better than the previous effects for these bosses, so I am really happy with the ideas we came up with together!

[grizzled rover]

time to talk now?

[odd nacelle]

P) Draw 1/4 of your deck, discrad any non played cards. Repeat for 4 hands

[spring silo]

Yes! sorry 🙂

[arctic widget]

Is B a late game boss?

[sinful holly]

i love to discrad my cards 🙂

[spring silo]

Yes replacing Amber Acorn

[thorny shard]

with M, you do get some agency in playing hands to switch the disabled joker

[grizzled rover]

• I didn't choose M because in most cases it's just going to be "oh i have less points this hand. oh well"
• I do also like the idea of ante-related boss ability, but yes I think it needs to be something other than N and O.
• I would've chosen A if it was -1. -2 is too punishing, especially with Ouija or Ectoplasm ever chosen during the run, unless there's a lot more ways to gain hand size in the full game.
• I would think that making 2 rows of cards for oversized hands would help with huge hands, but I could understand if that wasn't an option.

[hot patio]

Boss idea: you can't see what suits your cards are (the opposite would also be possible)

[quiet oracle]

imo difference between A and E is in build types
Builds that usually defeat blinds in 1-2 hands would be more hindered by A, builds that use many hands to win would be more hindered by E
I think most people’s playstyles would be affected more by A, but as a final boss E seems more thematic and would also be very hard for certain builds

[woeful vessel]

For I would it be too much to combine it with psychic to where you need to discard 5 cards too?

[mighty remnant]

i do think p would be the most fun

[arctic widget]

I think J could be 0.2x, but I guess that could be changed later on in balance patches.

[woeful vessel]

Yeah I like J but it seems like a bit too little for me

[grizzled rover]

forced 5 card discard is a cool idea

[sinful holly]

nah psychic is fine as is imo

[grizzled rover]

J seemed like too much to me. 5 card discard is 1/4 of the boss blind power

[woeful vessel]

Yeah fair, I just think forced 5 card discard for I would be neat

[grizzled rover]

that's pretty big

[minor radish]

oh didnt realise it was 5 answers only 😹

[mighty remnant]

i will say that i expermented with a boss blind that is the same idea as L in my hand calculator

that one would be very difficult to deal with and would be super hard

[grizzled rover]

approximately 5

[sinful holly]

that does seem interesting on another viewpoint

[minor radish]

11 is approximately 5 (in binary)

[sinful holly]

1e10 is approximately 5

[spring silo]

For J, X0.1 per card, maybe it starts at X1 base?

Then the whole ante is kinda the boss challenge

[mighty remnant]

yes

[sinful holly]

seems alr

[spring silo]

Or X0.2, starts at X1 base

[arctic widget]

Yeah but this boss should discourage you to play discards, if you can play 5 before it gets bad then that's too many.

[mighty remnant]

if both L and J are added, J has to be 0.2 cuz if its 0.1 its just easier L

[spring silo]

Yeah the idea is that it counters discards without hard countering

[grizzled rover]

discouraging discards as a concept is already filled by water
and larger score req. is already filled by wall

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[spring silo]

Any thoughts on P being a UX issue?

[mighty remnant]

what does UX mean again

[spring silo]

User experience

[mighty remnant]

ah

[spring silo]

Dealing with 26 cards in hand

[woeful vessel]

Would a boss that sets initial chips to zero be too much?

[quiet oracle]

Either split held hand into multiple pages or make two rows

[woeful vessel]

Rather than halting both

[fluid gale]

yes

[quiet oracle]

It would be tough to make right though

[minor radish]

splitting it into 2 rows?

[woeful vessel]

Cause you would only get chips from jokers and like the 10 from the cards lol

[sinful holly]

that’s the old ox iirc but worse (1 chip)

[woeful vessel]

Oh

[spring silo]

Would be a shame if P does have poor UX because the idea is so fun

Might need to get cut

[sinful holly]

😦

[quiet oracle]

I think other card games have managed with this

[arctic widget]

What if your deck just gets halved?

[grizzled rover]

i did suggest multiple rows of cards

[spring silo]

The multi row thing is a lot of work

[minor radish]

ah

[grizzled rover]

rip

[spring silo]

Plus technically it would be tricky to figure out with controller support

Not rip yet!

[mighty remnant]

do u think ur hand could just become the same menu as the deck info menu but able to play cards from there when over a certain amount

[spring silo]

I will give it a try

[grizzled rover]

revokes my rip

[spring silo]

The idea is too good not to try

[minor radish]

maybe you can use deck peek thingy to draw cards

[grizzled rover]

depending on how the boss actually plays, it's always possible for it to be more balanced to have less cards drawn

[minor radish]

but half the cards are disabled

so you can only draw the half

[spring silo]

Yeah GLUK gave a suggestion about that

[spring silo]

That's a ton for one boss

[mighty remnant]

thats kinda what im saying but the run info button that gives u ur deck would seem better imo

[grizzled rover]

the 13 over 4 hands one?

[spring silo]

Yeah similar concept, different but solves the UX thing

[grizzled rover]

i think that has some merit, although has issues with players buying more hands

like grabber / burglar

[spring silo]

Lose $ equal to played hand level

I need to stop

There are enough ideas 🙂

[thorny shard]

lol

[mighty remnant]

thats actually a really good one

[grizzled rover]

no

there are not enough

[sinful holly]

tooth but different 🤔

[spring silo]

I like tooth

more tooth = better tooth

[mighty remnant]

true

[spring silo]

tooth and wheel feel different as bosses

[minor radish]

maybe instead of multiple rows, can have multiple pages, but that's kinda annoying I feel like